As a nation state, Italy has emerged only in 1871. Until then the country was politically divided into a large number of independant cities, provinces and islands. The currently available evidences point out to a dominant Etruscan, Greek and Roman cultural influence on today's Italians.

Please clarify if you know. My great grandfather (born 1860) left his home in 1912 for a town nearby. I have a document that names a podere (farm) as his address and his occupation as colono. In the Italian to English Vocabulary Dictionary, colono is defined as below:The "profession or condition" word colono is found still in early19th Century Italian civil registers. Later it is replaced entirely by agricoltore. Where colono appears in the civil registers it means a farmer who works his own land; otherwise the word proprietario ("land owner") would have been used.

Do I understand correctly from this that my colono GF farmed his own land? Or was he a tenant farmer in 1912? Did the definition of colono change by early 20th century from owner to tenant? Wondering about this because in 1921 the family left that town and returned to the original home within the same province. Thanks

That's what makes sense to me, given that they uprooted a few years later. What threw me was the 19th century definition where colono is a land owner, but obviously the definition changed within the 100 years.

Thanks Carmine. I hope I didn't submit this twice, but if I did, forgive me. I typed and then it didn't go through.

The definition that I posted above from the Italian to English Vocabulary Dictionary: word colono is found still in early19th Century Italian civil registers. Later itis replaced entirely by agricoltore. Wherecolono appears in the civil registers it meansa farmer who works his own land; otherwise theword proprietario ("land owner") would have beenused.

This tells me that he, the colono, would have been working his OWN land whereas the proprietario is the guy who owned land that others worked for him and he did NOT work his own land at all.

I don't have anyone in the family to ask about land ownership, but if I find someone, I'll post here. What do you think? Land owner? Tenant Farmer? Seen colono defined both ways now.

I find colono used in Avellino records and contandino in Sicilian records. One relative that was a colono in 1897, also illegitimate came to the USA so I doubt he left his land, but who knows, a lot of people left because they had no irrigation like they do today.